Rural Road Development Authority to maintain PMGSY roads

Bhopal, May 31 (UNI) The Madhya Pradesh Rural Road Development Authority has been authorised to maintain road constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in the state.

The decision was taken at state cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan here today.

Financial resources for maintaining roads after their construction under PMGSY would be made available from the Kisan Sadak Nidhi, apart from the 12th Finance Commission and budgetary provision of the state government, an official release said.

It is estimated that road construction under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana would continue till 2015. In 2003, the then state government had decided to entrust maintenance work of the PMGSY roads to District Panchayats.

Arrangements for financial resources were made from the funds of Kisan Sadak Nidhi. At that time there were 27 projects under the Madhya Pradesh Rural Road Development Corporation and a target had been set to complete roads under PMGSY by the year 2007. At present, the number of project implementation units is 100 and a target has been set to construct roads in 1,500 villages including scheduled areas by 2009. Maintenance work would also become quite important in view of construction of roads in the next many years under the Rural Road Vision 2025.

Under the project, the work of maintaining the roads rests with the contractors who construct the road for five years and then it would be transferred to the department.

In this way, maintenance of those roads which were constructed in 2002-03 would have to be done by Panchayats and Rural Development Department. Due to lack of adequate technical staff and other important responsibilities, the District Panchayats would be unable to undertake maintenance of roads to be constructed under PMGSY, length of which would be 25,000 km in next five years and 48,000 km in the next 10 years.

Keeping these important issues in view, the cabinet, while considering roads as important asset in the development of villages, has decided to entrust the work of their maintenance to Rural Road Development Corporation, the release added.